© 2008
Children have the same existential questions that adults do. They wonder about everything from how their baby sister got here to that feeling they get when they watch a sunset or when a pet dies. They want to know how everything works, and why things happen. Religious education needs to give them the tools to make meaning in their lives at their own level at any age. It needs to help children explore the whole rather than indoctrinate them into a single way of believing. Religious exploration needs to show children how to find out who they are and the gifts they possess that can be carried out into the world. The arts can help them with this process.
Contents
Chapter 1: The Adult as Guide
From Spirituality and the Arts in Children's Programming
Adult leaders need to serve as guides into the process and as witnesses to the children's unfolding. We have moved in educational theory from thinking of the child as an empty vessel that needs to be filled with knowledge to seeing children as unique human beings with differing intelligences and...
Chapter 2: Ways to Help Children Find and Make Meaning
From Spirituality and the Arts in Children's Programming
There are many ways to set up lessons to encourage connections between children's inner experience and arts activities. These are some general guidelines. Always begin with a practice which helps the children to center and get ready for the experience they are about to have. If you begin your...
Chapter 4: How to Talk to Children about Their Arts Experiences
From Spirituality and the Arts in Children's Programming
Remember that you are the witness to the children's spiritual emergence through the arts. You are modeling for the children how to speak about the arts responses that are created in the classroom. It is not your job to interpret or comment or judge their response to the activity. A few guidelines...
Chapter 5: Ways and Means: Constructing Your Own Arts Activities
From Spirituality and the Arts in Children's Programming
In this section there are specific suggestions for activities in each of the arts modalities. Each section has an introduction framing the experience followed by specific suggestions for activities and a list of materials.
Chapter 6: Written Arts
From Spirituality and the Arts in Children's Programming
Writing is a time-honored practice on the spiritual path, helping people to name their experiences and to use specific senses to express their feelings about the world....
Chapter 7: Drama, Movement, and Dance
From Spirituality and the Arts in Children's Programming
Although we use our bodies in all of the visual arts and writing activities, drama, movement, and dance are all about embodying our spirit and creativity. Younger children are eager to move, but most youth lose this sense of bodily expression in our intellectual Western culture. Unless they...
Chapter 8: Concluding Remarks
From Spirituality and the Arts in Children's Programming
It is my hope as a religious educator that you have found this essay and the activities useful for your religious exploration classes. May you envision many more ways to help our children nurture their spiritual being and to support their work in becoming whole and holy in transforming the world.
Bibliography
From Spirituality and the Arts in Children's Programming
Spirituality and Creativity Briggs, John and F. David Peat. Seven Life Lessons of Chaos: Spiritual Wisdom From the Science of Change. San Francisco: HarperPerennial, 1999. Dissanayake, Ellen. Art and Intimacy: How the Arts Began. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000. Fox, Matthew.
Download all of Spirituality and the Arts in Children's Programming (Word) (Paper Saving Version ) to edit or print.